The illegal armed groups that are facing each other in the Colombian department of Arauca and in the neighboring Venezuelan state of rush they have comitted “multiple abuses” against the inhabitants of the areaeven with the complicity of the Venezuelan military, revealed a report published this Monday by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The clashes for territorial control between the guerrillas ofThe National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Eastern Joint Commanda coalition of dissident groups from the former FARCbegan on January 1 and have left dozens of dead, at least 3,860 internally displaced persons in Arauca and more than 3,300 people have fled from Venezuela to Colombiasays the report.
Apparently, “the ELN accused the 10th Front (of the dissidents) of commit abuses against the population -what the ELN also does-, to dedicate themselves to drug trafficking and to expand their presence in controlled areas“for them, according to the report.
These two armed groups, which in the past they were allies in Arauca, they have committed in their war not only murders but also other violations of human rights, as forced recruitment -including minors-, and forced displacement in which members of Venezuelan security forces.
VENEZUELAN MILITARY INVOLVED
“The armed groups are committing brutal abuses against civilians on the border between Colombia and Venezuela, in some cases with the complicity of members of the Venezuelan security forces, and the response of the Colombian authorities has been inadequate and insufficient”said the acting director for the Americas of HRW, Tamara Taraciuk.
According to the report, those Venezuelan military “have carried out joint operations with members of the ELN and have been complicit in their abuses” that may lead to “international investigations into alleged crimes against humanity.
For this investigation, Human Rights Watch visited the Colombian departments of Arauca and Vichada and interviewed more than one hundred people including community and indigenous leaders, judicial officials, local authorities and representatives of humanitarian and human rights organizations, as well as ordinary people, 43 of whom said they had fled Apure due to the violence of the ELN and the FARC dissidents.
Such groups “use violence to control people’s daily lives. They impose their own rules, including curfews, the regulation of fishing, the payment of debts and the closing hours of bars, and establish their own sanctions for cases of rape, robbery and murder,” according to HRW.
“Both armed groups have killed dozens of people. Many interviewees said that members of the ELN sought out people they accused of collaborating with dissident groups of the FARC” and, according to witnesses, they murdered some and took others away, the document states.
According to the Colombian Police, between January and February there were 103 homicides in Araucaby far the highest figure for a first two months of the year at least since 2010, indicates HRW.
CHILLING TESTIMONIES
The investigation collects numerous testimonies, such as that of Santiago Urrutia (pseudonym), who said that On January 1, members of the ELN took his brother with his hands tied Javier (pseudonym), 26, from his home in a rural area of Tame (Arauca), accusing him of “collaborate with the Joint Command of the East”.
“Hours later, Santiago received a message from a friend with a photo of his brother’s body. The photo, seen by Human Rights Watch, shows that he had a gunshot wound to the neck“, states the report, adding that the victim’s brother recounted that his friend told him “That he better go and pick it up quick before they throw it in the river.”
Santiago picked up the body of his brother, he buried him and that same night he left town without reporting the crime out of fear. “In that place there were more bodies,” he told HWR.
Another witness, Darío Salcedo (pseudonym) recounted how in the early hours of January 2, two members of the ELN and a soldier from the Venezuelan Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) arrived at his house in the town of El Ripial (Apure) in search of his neighbor Fernando Murillo (pseudonym).
The Venezuelan soldier accused Salcedo and Murillo of be “informants” of the Joint Command of the East and after members of the ELN threatened him with death, another member of that guerrilla said that they had found his neighbor, who was tied hand and foot and thrown to the ground where an ELN member He killed him with two shots.
On January 25, alleged members of the Joint Command of the East assassinated peasant Álvaro Peña Barragán and the following day, during his funeral, they killed his wife Rosalba Tarazona Ortega“alleging that they had cooperated with the ELN,” said witnesses and local officials to HRW.
REQUEST FOR PROTECTION
The agency indicates that Colombian authorities have attempted to diminish the power of armed groups in Arauca with the dispatch of military reinforcements, but these operations “have not sufficiently protected the population”.
“The Colombian authorities must urgently redouble their efforts to protect the population and assist displaced persons, and the UN Fact Finding Mission should investigate the responsibility of the Venezuelan security forces in the abuses of the guerrillas”Taraciuk added.
